{"$schema":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jsonresume/resume-schema/v1.0.0/schema.json","basics":{"name":"cristina bro _ mcb","label":"Independent Consultant & Small Projects and Ventures Builder","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocI12uPxdZo9Zkg9BtzgousX202eEye0nvmra2rSx_2tPZTAa4OF=s96-c","summary":"Management consultant with Tier-1 experience in structured problem-solving, and executive-level communication. I look for an opportunity to return to be an employee, including career returner roles (in the UK, time spent building ventures and freelancing is a career gap, as much as achieving another university degree)","location":{"city":"London, United Kingdom"},"profiles":[{"network":"LinkedIn","username":"cristinabro","url":"https://linkedin.com/in/cristinabro"}]},"meta":{"canonical":"https://saywise.com/cristinabrodu","version":"v1.0.0","lastModified":"2026-08-07T09:32:54.818Z"},"x_saywise":{"handle":"cristinabrodu","pronouns":null,"availability":null,"oneLiner":"Management consultant with Tier-1 experience in structured problem-solving, and executive-level communication. I look for an opportunity to return to be an employee, including career returner roles (in the UK, time spent building ventures and freelancing is a career gap, as much as achieving another university degree)","profileUrl":"https://saywise.com/cristinabrodu","markdownUrl":"https://saywise.com/cristinabrodu/profile.md","pdfUrl":"https://saywise.com/cristinabrodu/resume.pdf","archetype":{"code":"OS-MG","name":"Foundry Trailblazer","url":"https://saywise.com/sca/5a49d8044339","rarity":"One of the first Foundry Trailblazers on Saywise"},"aiStack":[{"name":"Claude","description":"I use it mostly to write code and for interactive data visualizations","url":"https://claude.ai","storyCount":0},{"name":"Lovable","description":"I use it to vibecode tools and websites","url":"https://lovable.dev","storyCount":0},{"name":"Eleven Music","description":"original music composition","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"ElevenLabs","description":"TTS, STT, FSX, VFX, voice agents, images and video creation, voice cloning and creation, dubbing","url":"https://elevenlabs.io","storyCount":0},{"name":"Gemini app","description":"my daily helper from visual assets editing to communications","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Vercel","description":"code writing","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"v0","description":"fully tailored website building with agentic AI code writer","url":"https://v0.dev","storyCount":0},{"name":"Canva","description":"slides, video editing, graphic design, social content","url":"https://canva.com","storyCount":0},{"name":"ChatGPT","description":"visual assets creation, brand teardown, communications","url":"https://chatgpt.com","storyCount":0},{"name":"Envato","description":"Video generation and editing, reframing, VFX, templates","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Flow","description":"Google Lab's video model, great for VFX and tools","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Stitch","description":"Google Lab's UX/UI exportable on Figma","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Seedance","description":"Highest quality video generation","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Kling","description":"Video generation","url":"https://kling.ai","storyCount":0},{"name":"Microsoft Copilot","description":"research, MS Office, communication, code","url":"https://copilot.microsoft.com","storyCount":0},{"name":"Wabi","description":null,"url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Notion AI","description":"knowledge management, journaling, notes","url":"https://notion.so","storyCount":0},{"name":"Granola","description":null,"url":"https://granola.ai","storyCount":0},{"name":"Wiper","description":null,"url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Eleven Reader","description":"TTS for all text and for books I create on ElevenLabs","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Cursor","description":"code","url":"https://cursor.com","storyCount":0},{"name":"Asana AI","description":"Agentic AI for project management","url":null,"storyCount":0},{"name":"Replit","description":"Agentic AI for vibecoding tools, apps and websites","url":"https://replit.com","storyCount":0},{"name":"Hedra AI","description":"Highest quality video lip-synch and more","url":null,"storyCount":0}],"aiProjects":[{"name":"Brand audit and redesign walkthrough","description":"This is a multidisciplinary project across Brand Design and Strategy, Visual Identity, Marketing, Creative Direction, and Design Systems that preceded and served as the foundation for my subsequent website design for the same brand. - THE PROJECT Topnotch Gyms originally presented itself as a fitness provider, but its identity was constrained by a no-code website builder: a monogram for the logo, a basic colour palette and a single typeface created a visually generic experience that communicated services without any identity. → CONTEXT This project was developed for ElevenLabs Hack #7, which challenged creators to recreate a live website in Vercel v0 and redesign it with integrated AI voice experiences. Rather than starting with UI design, I approached it as a complete brand transformation: strategy → identity → digital. I first designed a scalable visual identity system on Canva, then I extended it into merchandise and brand guidelines with ChatGPT. My goal was to transform Topnotch from a gym with a monogram into a lifestyle brand with a distinctive visual identity. → CREATIVE DIRECTION For the brand style and identity I have drawn inspiration from Y2K's nostalgia: instead of the metallic cyber aesthetic often associated with Y2K, I explored its brighter, more optimistic side through references to early-2000s surf culture, stickers, colourful magazines, MSN, and summer vibes. The result is a flexible identity system designed to scale consistently across digital products, campaigns and physical touchpoints. More than a visual refresh, my project demonstrates how strategic branding can transform a service into a culturally relevant lifestyle brand with resonance. → DELIVERABLES ✔ Brand Strategy & Positioning ✔ Visual Identity System ✔ Logo Redesign ✔ Typography & Color System ✔ Brand Guidelines ✔ Marketing Assets ✔ Mobile UI Concepts ✔ Merchandise Concepts ✔ Website Art Direction #BrandDesign #BrandStrategy #CreativeDirection #GraphicDesign #DesignSystems #Marketing #WebDesign Note, this isn't \"AI work\": it took me three days of zooming and panning on my 12-inch screen low spec tablet/cloudbook just to upscale the first video draft (128MB graphic card and a tiny screen means huge latency and barriers: work takes 50-60x more time than on a laptop, software like Adobe CS doesn't run neither on browser on it, while online SaaS like Tableau or Squarespace run crushes and freezes continuously).","url":"https://canva.link/nvu6bwvkuo5ohmw","image":"https://saywise-production-contentmediastoragebucket-bverkttc.s3.amazonaws.com/profiles/5559d507-9d96-48cf-a4b0-3ba78475212b/content/72614661c33954fbb150df13.png"},{"name":"Creative process walkthrough and commercial ad","description":"There’s a common misconception that creating with AI means writing a tiny prompt and letting the tool do all the heavy lifting. I wanted to show the opposite: the human thinking, creative direction, judgment, curation and work management behind an AI-assisted video advert. This aim matched the brief for a competition run by Envato on Contra so I submitted my entry to meet this goal. The walkthrough video I’m publishing here documents what happened between a one-minute sketch for a campaign and the design of a whole new brand, and how I also leveraged AI tools. You can use this video as a tutorial of the AI-tools I used in my creative workflow; or, if you want to watch the commercial ad directly, you can skip to the final 2 minutes - THE IDEA This project started with an idea I developed offline. The technology accelerated parts of the execution, but the concept, creative decisions and final result were entirely directed by me. My inspiration for the brand Cats Heaven stemmed from a creative task during a marketing agency open house event, hosted by Among Equals on 1 June 2026. The brief was simple: in 1–5 minutes, create a campaign capable of making the residents of a city take sides, either apologising to dogs for having banned them from the city for decades, or supporting their eviction without apologies and taking the cats’ side. While almost all participants opted for the apology and wrote only text on the provided Post-it, I preferred to visually argue the opposite. So I sketched my idea for a counter-petition from the cats’ perspective, showing how a city without dogs could be better: no unpleasant smells, no dirt, no loud barking, no aggressive behaviour. From the cats’ point of view, most importantly, complete ownership of their humans’ attention, and of the entire pet-budget. The perfect city to be spoiled by humans: simply put, cat's paradise. I later verified, on 26 July, that the brief was inspired by a real historical event in Reykjavík, and that, in June 2026, pet food brand Edgard & Cooper had developed a real campaign around our brief! My work for the campaign didn't go any further that, but my creative idea became the foundation for designing a new brand: Cats Heaven, a supplier of experiences and goods to spoil cats. - THE PROCESS I photographed my Post-it sketch from the agency event, informed Google Gemini about the campaign brief, and prompted it to turn my sketch into a polished poster that I could use for clearer communication. My aim was to use it to develop a new brand. I uploaded the poster and additional branding information to ChatGPT and asked for a brand teardown and strategic analysis. From there, using Envato as my main stock-asset and AI toolkit for producing the video advert meant changing my usual creative process, because I had to develop the commercial concept around the possibilities offered by the available **Envato** stock-assets. I focused on teatime, usually among human friends, but in my advert case, replacing a human with a cat. I edited the video material within Envato, as the platform excels at it, but for newly generated keyframes, I experimented also with frontier models through Use.AI: All-in-One AI Power, using especially ChatGPT 5.6 Because Envato works with single-video inputs, I sometimes had to combine multiple clips into one video first in Canva, layering and preparing those assets before bringing them into Envato. The result wasn’t created by pressing one button. It was built through a sequence of decisions about what to generate, what to reject, what to combine and what to refine. - HUMAN BY DESIGN AI can generate possibilities. It cannot replace the creative direction that determines which possibilities are worth pursuing. For the soundtrack, for example, I initially searched Envato for suitable stock music. Then I changed direction, and I created a custom soundtrack, writing a prompt that gave specific instructions for how the music should vary across each timed video segment. I compared outputs across Envato, ElevenLabs and Eleven Music, selecting the strongest results based on quality, and chose the latter. I took the same approach with sound effects: I sourced, created and compared them across platforms, ultimately using the sound effects I created with ElevenLabs. Finally, in Canva, I stitched, synchronized and refined the audio, video and text tracks into the final advert. In the past, I used to do this in Adobe Creative Cloud Premiere or Adobe Express, but they don’t run on my cloudbook, not even online, and the libraries where I can use PCs are too far away. So Canva is the perfect alternative (although timelines with layered tracks are so painful to pan and zoom on my 12-inch cloudbook!) The important part of the process wasn’t simply knowing which AI tools to use. It was deciding what I wanted to achieve, recognising when an output wasn’t right, making creative decisions about the editing, and managing the work across multiple tools and iterations. AI can accelerate creative production, particularly during prototyping, but ultimately, creative direction from development through to production is human, and so are the best ideas. Humans imagine. Humans direct. Humans select. Humans curate. Humans refine. AI is part of my creative toolkit, not the creative director - DELIVERABLES Initial campaign ✔ Campaign Concept ✔ Campaign Poster New brand design & video ad ✔ Creative Strategy ✔ Brand Concept Development ✔ Brand Teardown & Analysis ✔ Video Advert ✔ AI-Generated Keyframes ✔ Stock Video Curation ✔ Original Music Soundtrack ✔ Sound Design ✔ Audio & Video Editing ✔ Creative Direction ✔ Final Curation #EnvatoChallenge #HumanByDesign #CreativeProcess #Marketing #VideoProduction #BrandDesign #ContentDesign #GraphicDesign #Marketing #AdDesign #GeneralCreator #videoeditorfreelancer","url":"https://canva.link/qn0q7vx5sfoliir","image":"https://saywise-production-contentmediastoragebucket-bverkttc.s3.amazonaws.com/profiles/5559d507-9d96-48cf-a4b0-3ba78475212b/content/e374e9cf42b4a89e6f2a93b4.jpg"}]},"work":[{"name":"Independent Consultant & Small Projects and Ventures Builder","position":"Independent Consultant & Small Projects and Ventures Builder","location":"London Area, United Kingdom","url":"https://evolution-consult.com","startDate":"2020-11-01","summary":"Established operating infrastructure for an e-commerce platform managing 30 contractors over 2 years. Conducted market sizing and financial scenario modelling to determine go-to-market strategies and direct resource allocation toward highest-ROI opportunities. Built financial models and dashboards surfacing critical risks, costs, and revenue potential to enable Go/No-Go recommendations for C-level clients. Managed all stakeholder relationships and operational processes."},{"name":"AON UK","position":"Senior Consultant - Enterprise Risk Management","location":"London Area, United Kingdom","url":"https://aon.com","startDate":"2019-03-01","endDate":"2019-05-31","summary":"Strengthened accountability by introducing RACI methodology in ERM engagements planning. Enhanced RFP and pricing methodology through independent design of reference outputs. Created an Excel-based tool to assess Rigby Group's governance maturity across multiple dimensions."},{"name":"Ernst & Young Global Consulting Services","position":"Consultant - Business Performance Improvement","location":"London","url":"https://ey.com","startDate":"2015-08-01","endDate":"2017-05-31","summary":"Managed a team of 10 colleagues for a year on EY internal communications. Contributed to defining go-to-market strategy for EY Growth-Advisory clients. Produced board-level reporting and decision-enabling decks for projects generating over £2M in revenue. Delivered process improvement proposals achieving up to 50% cost savings and 70% time savings. Contributed to strategy and operational optimization of a £24B portfolio."},{"name":"Linklaters LLP","position":"Analyst - Strategy and Business Transformation","location":"London, United Kingdom","url":"https://linklaters.com","startDate":"2015-06-01","endDate":"2015-07-31","summary":"Supported directors in the design and analysis of divestment and M&A transactions, providing research and strategic insights to inform transaction structuring."},{"name":"MCB PROFESSIONAL SERVICES","position":"Ltd director, planning, eng, arch","location":"Greater London","startDate":"2007-01-01","endDate":"2015-01-01","summary":"I left my first career in architectural–engineering design by changing career at EY through a training scheme employment, but I value the experience and responsibilities I held before EY: my work involved project design (from concept and schematic planning - that can look like boxes, to show footprints and heights of the required footage, by function - to the design of the actual shape of the buildings). Some clients however don’t get that schematic design isn’t the final output but an initial visual tool to discuss functions size and location in the land to develop). I have a post‑MSc professional licence as both an architect and an engineer. Since 2006 I reported to director‑level team leaders, and from 2007 to VPs, before retraining in consulting at EY from 2015. I worked collaboratively across multidisciplinary teams. My responsibilities included client liaison, design development, problem‑solving, planning, and PMO‑related activities. — Since I worked at EY, some malevolent people have been spreading the rumour that I was a “drafter” in this career, because even firms often tell to clients that foreigners do drawings only, but this is completely false: only who works in the delivery phases of a project produces a lot of vector-based construction drawings, but that was a role I held only for three months at FPL and at LOA while my many years of practice and studies involved design origination, using a wide range of software as well as hand sketching. Why undermining a profession that requires years of university study and practical experience? Is it envy? Why otherwise diminishing the value of my past work, even after I changed career? — My technical stack at the time (used up to a decade ago, before EY) included: 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Revit, CATIA, Rhino, SolidWorks, ArcGIS, GaBi, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, Acrobat, SketchUp, ArchiCAD, MicroStation, AutoCAD & BIM, Excel, PowerPoint, I Word, Outlook, MS Project, and others"},{"name":"RTKL, HOK, ARUP","position":"Project-designer contractor, Assistant Director","location":"London","startDate":"2006-08-01","endDate":"2014-11-30","summary":"Delivered design solutions and cross-departmental project management across multiple architectural and engineering firms. Managed project workflows and coordinated between departments to ensure successful delivery of design and PMO objectives."}],"education":[{"institution":"Universidad de Sevilla","studyType":"Engineering Architecture (for buildings & cities in not software)","startDate":"2023-01-01","endDate":"2024-06-01"},{"institution":"Shri Kali Ashram, Yoga Alliance® Accredited School","studyType":"200 hours yoga teacher training","startDate":"2017-12-01","endDate":"2018-01-01"},{"institution":"Kaplan","studyType":"CIMA certificate","startDate":"2016-01-01","endDate":"2017-01-01"},{"institution":"Harvard University","studyType":"Master's degree","startDate":"2010-09-01","endDate":"2012-06-01"},{"institution":"Sapienza Università di Roma","url":"https://uniroma1.it","studyType":"MSc + BSc in Architecture Engineering","startDate":"2000-09-01","endDate":"2006-06-01"},{"institution":"Liceo Scientifico","studyType":"Upper Secondary School Diploma di Maturità, equivalent to NVQ Level 4","startDate":"1993-09-01","endDate":"1999-06-01"},{"institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","studyType":"Interdisciplinary courses with exams (on campus in cross-registered)"},{"institution":"MIT Sloan School of Management","studyType":"Courses from MBA curriculum (on campus in cross registered)"},{"institution":"Google pour les pros","studyType":"Google UX Design professional certificate in UX research and design"}],"projects":[{"name":"Dynamic dashboard for insights on UK immigrants' socio-economic patterns","description":"90% of this project’s value (and work to build) lies in what static slide decks simply can’t do: the exploratory, interactive features of Tableau, which differentiate it from PowerPoint. All it takes is a hover, click, or tap on mobile, wait for the dashboard refresh, and read the unlocked insights that disappear in static screenshots. I’ve built this dashboard to explore how country of birth and ancestry influence levels of qualifications, occupational access, and wealth-building opportunities in the UK. Key interactive features • Dashboard-level parameter highlighter that lets you select a country of birth and instantly blue-highlight relevant elements across charts at multiple granularity levels • Filters to include and exclude the British group for comparison, dynamically re-scaling axes when zooming out to include it, and when zooming-in to exclude it and view migrant groups, which are otherwise dwarfed • Chart-level parameters, page controls, and search highlighters to switch categories or find specific countries or ethnicity (given that the Census inconsistently tracks a mix of country-of-birth and ethnic-origins per topic) Key findings • Visa, settlements, and the under-tracked population in Census surveys reinforce South Asian concentrations • Origin-country population size weakly predicts UK migrant representation and doesn't justify concentrations • Census Level 4+ aggregation and under-coverage mask inequality: many foreign-born groups are more highly qualified than the UK-born, yet face persistent underemployment and low access to wealth building factors • Larger migrant groups have higher access to housing ownership • High-income role access doesn't correlates with qualifications • UK-born retain the strongest advantages: highest median wealth, ownership, high-income concentrations • Clear stratification: entrenched advantage for UK-born White; upward mobility for Indian and Irish-born; • Small-population minorities face the steepest barriers"}],"skills":[{"name":"Microsoft PowerPoint"},{"name":"Microsoft Excel"},{"name":"Problem Solving"},{"name":"Team Leadership"},{"name":"Critical Thinking"},{"name":"Strategic Planning"},{"name":"Communication"},{"name":"Mentoring"},{"name":"Negotiation"},{"name":"Interpersonal Communication"},{"name":"Teamwork"},{"name":"Management"},{"name":"Leadership"},{"name":"Statistical Data Analysis"},{"name":"Management Consulting"},{"name":"Start-ups"},{"name":"Business Strategy"},{"name":"Research"},{"name":"Data Analysis"},{"name":"Business Planning"},{"name":"Contract Negotiation"},{"name":"Project Management"},{"name":"Real Estate Development"},{"name":"Comprehensive Planning"},{"name":"Training Delivery"},{"name":"Recruiting"},{"name":"Operations"},{"name":"Evidence"},{"name":"Business Development"},{"name":"Human Resources (HR)"},{"name":"Agile Project Management"},{"name":"Product Management"},{"name":"Product Road Mapping"},{"name":"Product Strategy"},{"name":"Technical Product Management"},{"name":"Financial modelling"},{"name":"Scenario modelling"},{"name":"Risk analysis"},{"name":"Revenue analysis"},{"name":"Leveraged IRR"},{"name":"ROI"},{"name":"NPV"},{"name":"SCQA communication"},{"name":"BLUF"},{"name":"Executive pitches"},{"name":"Market sizing"},{"name":"TAM-SAM-SOM"},{"name":"Competitive analysis"},{"name":"Go-to-market strategy"},{"name":"Root cause analysis"}],"certificates":[{"name":"Aha! Product Management Professional Certificate","date":"2024-09-01","issuer":"Aha!"},{"name":"Cert Prep: PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®","date":"2024-09-01","issuer":"LinkedIn"},{"name":"Google UX Design Professional Certificate","date":"2024-04-01","issuer":"Coursera"},{"name":"9. CCAT results in the top 5% - www.criteriacorp.com","date":"2021-03-01","issuer":"Criteria"},{"name":"8. Negotiation _ Yale University","date":"2020-07-01","issuer":"Coursera"},{"name":"7. American Contract Law _ Yale University","date":"2020-05-01","issuer":"Coursera"}]}